SpectraCell and BioMeridian Testing Helps Local Internist Integrate Eastern-Western Medicine

The Relaxation Response

The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness

Glutathione: Natural Antioxidant and Key to Longevity and Health
 

As a conventionally trained internist, local Texas City physician Dorothy Merritt had a dilemma several years ago when she was faced with the growing number of patients admitting to "alternative therapies."  Relearning an entirely new way of approaching medicine via "Eastern" medicine and acupuncture seemed overwhelming but intriguing.  Learning botanical pharmacology and then having to integrate unfamiliar Chinese and Indian names into the whole picture was tedious.  This area of medicine was still not conducive to professional acceptance by her peers and she quickly felt the sting of peer pressure when she was forced to resign from her 8 year tenure as medical director at the former Galveston County Hospice for "not representing community standards" over the sudden recommendation that people take antioxidant, vitamins and minerals along with a cysteine supplement. While that doesn't seem so controversial now, it was absolutely considered quackery by the majority of MDs just 3 years ago.  After she did over 500 SpectraCell assays on local patients in 1997 and documented deficiencies that were astounding she was still incredulous until replacement of simple nutrients like cysteine (an amino acid) and minerals, B vitamins and antioxidants yielded "cures" and reduction in medication and hospitalizations that were immediately apparent.  That was when she realized that if medicine was viewed at a cellular or biochemical level, particularly around the very important glutathione molecule, it was easy to categorize the effect of many of the botanical and herbal remedies as antioxidant or glutathione enhancers at a local tissue level.  For instance, milk thistle (silymarin) is the world wide number one prescribed enhancer of glutathione for liver and psoriasis conditions.

Last year Dr. Merritt purchased a BioMeridian analyzer (not yet FDA approved for diagnosis) which measures the electrical energy flow along the acupuncture meridians and quantifies and graphs out the over or under functioning of the multiple meridians.  Using a data base of over 22,000 conventional medications, herbals, orthomoleculars, homeopathics and other products, a person's meridians can be measured in a "westernized" graphic form and "balanced" with specific products.  The test actually involves a simple probe put over 55 acupuncture sites and measuring the electrical energy.  The computerized program then groups all the organ systems by their meridians and then classifies them as normal, hyperactive or hypoactive.  These normal ranges are based on 30 years of German technology and testing, "I am trying to figure out how to integrate this "alternative" but extremely helpful technology into my daily conventional practice.  Right now it takes us about an hour to do a simple case.  I am trying to put this to work using an approach that will allow me to quickly find the right pharmacological agents for each individual that will work in harmony to restore their health".  This new technology lets Dr. Merritt integrate the "eastern" science that she is less familiar with and the "western" analytical science she is familiar with."   I personally think that this approach may more closely represent the actual cellular metabolism of what is going on in the body than our other approaches.  It certainly has made me more understanding of the nebulous area of "energy" medicine and I hope that by keeping a very detailed record like I did with the SpectraCell data, that I can achieve superior results for healing and also be able to present a scientific set of data to my peers that will convince them to do the same.  Perhaps soon we will have an individualized approach to getting well that works 90% of the time!

The "relaxation response" can help in the treatment and prevention of disease by lowering the oxygen consumption by the body, as well as preventing the release of powerful and sometimes harmful natural hormones such as adrenaline, which are useful to the body if it is being put in a threatening position that it must escape from but can be deadly if generated on a chronic basis.

"Dying of fright" is real when adrenaline causes an acute fatal heart arrhythmia.  In a study published by Harvard, 69 people who were caregivers for spouses with dementia (and presumably under stress) were compared against controls from the same area for 15 months.  The caregivers were found to have more colds, illnesses, and decreased immune function compared to their peers.  Many other medical diseases have been proven to be affected by chronic stress and/or the secretion of the stress hormones.

Heart, lung, endocrine and gut problems have all been substantially improved with regular use of the "Relaxation Response".  This technique has been scientifically demonstrated by Herbert Benson at Harvard's Mind Body Institute to reduce the body's oxygen consumption, which can be very helpful in controlling chest pain in a "heart" patient or shortness of breath in a "lung patient".

While both sleep and the relaxation response bring a decrease in oxygen consumption, the change occurs much more rapidly with the relaxation response.  Oxygen consumption remains low for as long as a person elicits the relaxation response.

The key component to the relaxation response are deep, rhythmic breathing and repetition of a sound, word or phase (verbally or silently). This reproducible pattern has been found in every culture in it's religions and secular practices.  In Judaism, from 500 BC to 100 AD, followers of a philosophy called "Merkabolism" would squat and focus on their breathing and repeat the name of a magic seal.  In Christianity, the "Jesus Prayer" (Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me), which evolved from the ascetic Desert Fathers, and was ultimately used in the Byzantine Monasteries in the 14th Century.  Similar practices exist in Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism and Confucianism.  Benson brought people who used repetitive prayer such as the Catholic Rosary, the Jewish davening-type prayer or the Protestantism "centering" prayer and demonstrated the same response.

Condensed from Mind Body Medicine published by Consumer Reports

Wellness is a paradigm shift from uni-dimensional focus on the mind, or the body.  It involves six major areas of life: the physical, the emotional, the social, the intellectual, the vocational, and the spiritual.  The next curve in medicine is going to involve population health, a concept that must be multi-dimensional in it's approach to wellness.  This summary is of a book written by Greg Anderson, survivor of meastatic lung cancer called The 22 {Non-Negotiable} Laws of Wellness.

The Universal Laws:

1)  The law of  Espirit: Living life with joy-each day.

2)  The law of personal accountability: If it's going to be, it's up to me.  Robert H. Schuller

3)  The law of unity: The part can never be well unless the whole is well.  Plato

The Physical Laws:

4)  The law of physical activity: Use it or lose it.

5)  The law of nutritional frugality: A little with quiet is the only diet. Scottish proverb

6)  The law of minimal medical invasiveness: The art of medicine is generally a question of time.  Ovid

The Emotional Laws:

7)  The law of stress-hardiness: It's not what happens to you, it's what you do about it.

8)  The law of emotional choice: Learning to be aware of feelings is an essential lifetime skill.

9)  The law of developmental motivation: Use what talents you possess; the woods would be silent if no birds sang except those who sang the very best.  Henry Van Dyke

The Social Laws:

10)  The law of human dignity: God created man in his own image.  Genesis

11)  The law of win/win: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  The Golden Rule

12)  The law of present moment living: Be here now.  Ram Dass

The Intellectual Laws:

13)  The law of mindfulness: A mind in its own place can make a heaven out of hell, and a hell out of heaven.  John Milton

14)  The law of creativity: Imagination is the mind of the soul.  Joseph Joubert

15)  The law of life time growth: We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden. Goeth

The Vocational Laws:

16)  The law of life's mission: He dies every day who lives a lingering life.  Pierrard Pollett

17)  The law of purpose through service: Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to be a man of value.
Albert Einstein

18)  The law of stewardship: If you want happiness for a lifetime, help the next generation.  Chinese proverb

The Spiritual Laws:

19)  The law of forgiveness: Forgiveness restores our heart to the innocence we once knew, an innocence that allowed us the freedom to love.  Robin Casarjian

20)  The law of gratitude: Affirm the good things.

21)  The law of personal peace: Without inner peace, it is impossible to have world peace.  The Dalai Lama

The Most Important Law:

22)  The law of unconditional love: …and the greatest of these is love.  Saint Paul

Glutathione (GSH) is a natural protein that is made of three amino acids: glycine, glutamate and most importantly the essential amino acid, cysteine.  It turns out to be as important as air and water to living systems, and without it we age faster and develop disease faster.  Over 3000 published articles can be found if you look back just over the last three years in the published scientific literature.  The application of this knowledge will change medicine and disease as we know it in the next decade.  According to research published by a French team of scientists, almost 50% of the population has lost a 10KB fragment from their DNA that is responsible for glutathione function.  This means that half of the population has no defense against environmental toxins if they don’t avoid exposure to environmental toxins or supplement with extra sources of cysteine and glutathione in their diet.

How does it work?

This protein causes major biochemical reactions in the cell that allow us to stay healthy.  It acts as the major cellular detoxification enzyme to environmental agents including prescription medications and alcohol.  It is the antioxidant that recharges Vitamin C and E, which recharges the substances that if left uncharged, lead to arthritis, inflammation, thrombosis, atherosclerosis and many other conditions.  It's the cellular substance that makes the immune system fight disease.  In addition, genetic damage from internal and environmental stresses are dependent on cysteine and glutathione for successful repair.  Lack of these substances lead to degeneration and mutations that can lead to cancer and aging diseases.  The transport of simple protein hormones, such as insulin, sex hormones, and adrenal hormones are dependent on it to cross from the blood stream into the cell where the actual work gets done.

How do we raise our GSH levels ?

So, if 90% of disease is based on low glutathione function in our body, how can we raise the levels safely?  In our diet, cysteine, the essential amino acid that our body cannot make, comes from meat protein (especially red meat), eggs (albumin is very high), dairy products (yogurt is highest) and wheat germ.  Oral glutathione supplements in any form are not well absorbed.  L-cysteine, the raw amino acid form can be potentially toxic as it is absorbed, and is not friendly to the gastrointestinal tract.  Whey proteins are extremely high in precursors but they are very susceptible to temperature and are easily inactivated.  A product called ImmunoCal, which was studied extensively for over 18 years for use in cancer treatment and other diseases.  It is a concentrated whey protein in which inactivation has been avoided.  It has passed phase 1, 2, and 3 pharmaceutical studies and is marketed world wide.  It is available without a prescription in the U.S.  The drawback is that it is quite expensive.  Methionine is another amino acid that can be converted into glutathione in the cell but it requires a lot of other factors and the main worry is that too much may negatively affect our arteries by overproduction of homocysteine, an agent that leads to hardening of the arteries.  SAM (s-Adenosyl-Methionine) is a form that has already been partially converted to cysteine, may react poorly with some medications, and can cause dry mouth, agitation, and gastrointestinal irritation.  My favorite is NAC (N-acetyl cysteine), which has been used safely for the last 20-30 years as an antidote to tylenol overdoses, and many other conditions ranging from acute myocardial infarctions, cancer, colon polyps, lung diseases, arthritis, hypertension, and other toxic conditions.  There are over 200 published papers in the last 15 years that position it as a safe way to treat and prevent many diseases.  NAC should be taken in multiple doses daily because it has a short shelf life and won’t last all day.  In a few rare cases, it can cause allergic reactions such as hives and wheezing.

Who should benefit from enhanced glutathione supplementation?

Short of saying anyone who also benefits from water and air, which is everyone.  It is easier to say those that don’t need to worry are those who live in areas with pure air and water, eat plenty of fresh, chemical free foods including eggs, dairy, meat and wheat germ.  If you are so lucky to be in that category, you also have to worry about being in the 50% of the population that has inherited the lost DNA fragment that controls glutathione detoxification enzyme functions, and may not even be able to adequately maintain their own glutathione function necessary for normal products of metabolism.

Other Ways To Preserve GSH Levels In The Body

Avoidance of cigarette smoke, environmental toxins, radiation and unnecessary “xenobiotics” or chemicals is the best way.  Unfortunately, according to a Scientific American article, we may better off live outside.   Their study of household toxins scientifically measured the amount of toxic exposures in an average household, and it was considerable.  Suddenly, the amount of allergies and inflammatory conditions we can get from being in an enclosed home or work environment is understandable.

What can Be Done To Filter The Environment ?

Air and water filters can help filter out many of the toxins and particles that are in our indoor structures.  Use of natural cleaning enzymes instead of solvents may help.  Use of sunscreen and protective clothing filtering out unwanted UV light.  Supplementation with glutathione enhancers, such as ImmunoCal and NutriGenesis Plus NAC, or silymarin (milk thistle) appear to be a good idea based on the science available at this time.

Which supplements should I take?

Nutrient 950+NAC is a specially compounded formula of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and glutathione enhancers that was developed because of the special nutritional deficiencies in Galveston County, which are particularly severe with respect to antioxidants, minerals, and the amino acid cysteine, and B vitamins.  It is manufactured by Pure Encapsulations using pharmaceutical grade products and under special conditions that are the same as the prescriptions that you purchase.  It was developed because the components in it were responsible for over a 50% reduction in medications for blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, depression, and chronic fatigue in our local clinic.  For patients with heart conditions, or severe autoimmune or inflammatory conditions, a combination of glucoasamine, Ultranutient and NAC seems to work best.  Glucosamine and NAC, can be purchased at most pharmacies or health food stores but UltraNutrient, and Nutrient 950+ NAC is only available through a physician.  Patients who are on medications for blood pressure and diabetes should monitor their BP and consult with their personal physician or someone who is familiar with these products because rapid changes can occur in 3-5 days because of insulin resistance that is reversed rapidly with magnesium and NAC type supplements.  For more information on obtaining these nutritional supplements, check our website at http://www.wellnesssolutions.com.   For people who want an individualized assessment of what supplements they need, see our previous columns on BioMeridian testing or SpectraCell Lab analysis.

BE WELL!